im-a-book-kinda-dude

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(noises of a guy chewing on wood) there's just something about the way that Ivy becomes Scarlet and Scarlet becomes someone else and by the time they find each other again they have been irreparably changed. And they don't fit together anymore, and Scarlet wants things to go back to the way they were and Ivy is just happy she's alive.

Like. Scarlet wants to be Ivy and Scarlet as they were before so bad that it drives a wedge between them, because Ivy doesn't want that at all, and Scarlet can't handle that. But Ivy is just glad Scarlet is alive. She doesn't care so much how they do it, so long as Scarlet is alive and she can talk to her. It is also easier for Ivy to deal with this because Ivy has gained confidence and the ability to stand up for herself and FRIENDS in their time apart (as well as depression low-key but it is what it is) and Scarlet has gotten. Trauma.

[im-a-book-kinda-dude]

Hey, have you read any of https://archiveofourown.org/users/Give_Me_A_Karking_KitKat

's fanfiction on Ao3? It's really good!

Um. That is me

[im-a-book-kinda-dude]

hey, sorry this is completely out of the blus but i saw that you like scarlet and ivy!! i haven't actually read any of her books, but i do know the author- she's really nice n she came to my last birthday party :)

Hi, sorry I didn't notice this ask!!! Yes, I love the books- they're a bit of a mess, but they're my mess, if you know what I mean.

Sophie Cleverly really is very nice (she answered some of my questions about the books!!) and her books, while a bit chaotic (if that's the right word for them) are really very enjoyable.

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Okay so if you haven't read Breadcrumbs by Anne Ursu I really recommend you do because that book made me cry every ten pages and even though I'm an emotional mess that's still impressive.

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ignoring canon because i simply do not vibe with it

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Every time I read a section of any Scarlet and Ivy book

I'm hit by how messed up their childhood is. They're traumatised. They're just kids at the start of the series, not even teenagers, and debatably that's the worst book for them, trauma-wise. Because sure, in other books they nearly get murdered, but at least they have eachother. In the first book, they're separated, dealing with super messed up stuff either completely by themselves (poor Scarlet. I really need to go into full detail about how terrible her stay at the asylum was, but it was bad) or mostly alone, with only one person perminantly supporting them (Ivy has one person supporting her in a mess of triggers and horrifying realisations, and that person is also a literal child). They're not doing well at all. And to make matters worse (because it can always get worse) their home life sucks. Words cannot truly express how much it sucks, but in short summary: their step mother is abusive and their dad is neglectful. They haven't had a happy childhood. Before they go to Rookwood, neither of them have any friends but eachother.

How separated from everyone else must they be, to have no one else they trust at all?

Scarlet and Ivy are their only comfort in a terrible upbringing, and when Scarlet goes to Rookwood, she's bullied, and feels alone, and alienated, and lashes out. And then she "dies". She gets sent to an insane asylum and something within her dies. Scarlet cannot deal with the insane asylum, with being told she was off it, that everything she knows is wrong, and it breaks her. When she gets back, she's a different person. And Scarlet has always been a bit cowardly, a bit self-serving, too ambitious and not skilled enough, afraid to face the consiquenses of her actions (switching the tests so she gets into Rookwood, because she knows she didn't revise and Ivy did), but now it's so much more than that. Scarlet is terrified of being punished, terrified of people, anxious and on-edge, but she also lashes out more, acts out more, "I'm me I'm me I'm me". Scarlet is also brave in the face of physical danger, and protective, but when she comes to it now she's almost suicidal in her sacrificial actions, she needs to prove that she's who she thinks she is. Scarlet's whole identity as a person got erased, and she's trying to claim it back, while also ignoring her trauma, and, suprise suprise, it's not really working. Scarlet has a volcano full of traumatic memories, and they're erupting out of her uncontrollably, and she's so scared, but she's so angry, too.

And when Scarlet "dies", things go from bad to worse for Ivy. She could deal with her sister bring away, with having to look after her aunt, but Scarlet being dead? It doesn't compute. Scarlet was Ivy's rock, and her rock is gone forever and she's drowning (have I ever explained how much Ivy is linked to water? Because like. It's a lot.) and Ivy can't deal. She gets lost in her grief, drowns in her sadness, and she's so very close to just laying down and letting herself die. But she can't. Because she needs to look after her aunt (and while it's terrible she's her aunt's caretaker, at least it gives her a reason to live. Ivy doesn't- she doesn't really have a lot of those, at the start of the book) and so she cannot die. So Ivy disconnects, mentally checks out, starts not processing her emotions, and gets stuck in the denial stage of grief. And that's gotta be a horrible experience for a literal child, to be so depressed, and so traumatised. And Ivy is traumatised by Scarlet's death - quite badly, in fact. Because to her, Scarlet was dead for almost a year. She was dead. And Ivy's response to that was to basically go through an emotional shut down, and so now, with Scarlet being so self destructive in trying to save everyone, she gets very worried, and very stressed out. The thought of Scarlet getting injured terrifies her, she cannot go through her death a second time. Ivy has this huge ball of sadness that she's locked away, and enough traumatic memories to fill a ferry, and together they cause her a heck of a lot of misery, stress and anxiety.

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Whoop, been reading the second book

And I figured out how the twins differ in bravery, when Scarlet can be brave. Ivy is a "I'll defeat the big bad boss, take the whole thing down, save everyone and reveal the truth that way" whereas Scarlet is "Let me just run into danger (burning library, cracking ice) and rescue this person. If I can't do that, there's no point anymore."

Ivy tries to take down things from their root, tries to protect everyone by heading off with a villain, make sure everyone else is safe and has a backup plan. She protects people from other people, because that's what she did to save Scarlet and it worked. Scarlet, on the other hand, protects people from danger. She saves them from dangerous situations, with minimal regard to her own life (and that regard comes from Ivy, what Ivy will feel if she's gone) and saves the day like the hero she wants to be. But the thing is, Scarlet struggles to face up to harmful people without the threat of physical danger, and Ivy struggles to face up to physical danger unless it's a person causing said danger.

They're painfully codependent.

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Off topic, but

Black Heron from the Ducktales reboot is such a fun character to think about in terms of quite how off her head she is. Like, this is a character who will blame everyone but herself for her failures, and who is literally the definition of insane (according to Albert Einstein) because she repeats the same plans and, suprise suprise, said plans fail again.

She's more than a little bit insane, which becomes apparent in the way she responds to both losing and being taunted - it's not a measured response at all. Black Heron doesn't do measured responses. Also, she's definitely not a villain with standards. If it will help her reach her goal (which is currently revenge) she'll threaten to kill a child, ligitimately fight a child, have robots surrounding her base that will kill people, kidnap people, ect. Heron interests me because she stewed in her rage at being defeated the first time for actual years, and it's scary to think of what she'd do if she found Beakley or Webby again. And she knows where they live. She broke into one of the most secure places in the world just to kidnap a trained spy. Unlike Magica, who is currently powerless, or Don, who's focus isn't solely on Dewey, Heron is almost completely focused on revenge, and she's only down her arm, which can be replaced.

And the worst part is how much of her urge for revenge will have been transferred to Webby. She literally says "This is all your fault!" to Webby when things go wrong, and that makes me think her focus is going to switch to Webby.

And sure, Webby is very competent for a child, but she's still a child. (Also, Herons eat ducklings. And pair that with the fact that Beagles hunt ducks, and Ma Beagle's main target is Scrooge, I suspect Heron's main target will be Webby. Because, a) parallels, and b) revenge.) Anyways, I'm worried-intrested in what Heron will do when she returns, because I'm like 99.9% sure she'll go after Webby, and that's going to be interesting.

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Well this is unfortunately accurate

If you don’t write paragraphs on paragraphs on shit absolutely nobody but you and maybe 2 other people give a shit about you are not living your most authentic life

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Honestly I'm just going to scream for a bit, sorry

But honestly what the actual fuck was Ivy thinking when she essentially told someone she was terrified of to 'square up, bitch' and then proceeded to fucking ruin her, and then proceeded to do that everytime she met a challenge, with a mixture of brains, absolutely no sense of self preservation, and a mildly mentally unstable fulled rage. Like this ligitimate child is just out there, taking down murderers and abusers, 99% of the time scared shitless, and her main focus isn't even on them, it's on her sister and the other kids around her, and Ivy is filled with protective rage like 24/7 now, god help the poor soul who gets in her way as an adult. Also like she's actually baited murderers into attacking her???? Like what the fuck, my child needs therapy (though not in her time period.... I'm so sorry Scarlet) because that's very self sacrificial behaviour. And, like the only person who actually sees anything wrong with this has just kinda accepted it'll happen by the end of the second time. And it's just terrible, that Ivy's been forced into this role, because she's still shy, but she needs to be strong because Scarlet can't be anymore. And so Ivy has sacrificed so much of herself in order to try and keep everyone she cares about safe, and she will keep doing it.

Also Scarlet, Scarlet, Scarlet.... God my child needs therapy but she's never going to get it... I feel so bad for her and she has much the same issues as her twin, but instead of being fulled by a protective rage she's just so scared... Their personalities kinda flipped, but Scarlet is still trying to be strong and brave but really that's Ivy, now, and all Scarlet gets is into trouble. She's all bluster, bark and no bite, and it fills her with shame because, in her mind, she's supposed to be the one protecting Ivy, because that's what she did when they were little (because their step mother is abusive and their father is neglectful), but now all she wants to do is run away, to cause trouble without conscience, just to prove she can (the without conscience thing is important, it's so so important, because Scarlet needs to be in control, she needs to have her sense of self back, but punishment = Miss Fox and so she can't face being punished, not really, because I'm like 90% sure she has PTSD, or some trauma related mental illness, and so punishment = Miss Fox = flashback, and Scarlet hates feeling weak). Scarlet is absolutely desperate for a form of control, and her entire world still revolves around Ivy, because Scarlet has never made a friend on her own when Ivy has (Ivy no longer revolves around Scarlet, and that hurts her, and she doesn't fully understand why) because Scarlet is not well. Scarlet is too abrasive, and she doesn't know how to stop.

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You didn't tell me about this tumblr!! I found it browsing through your other one and it's!! good! ngl I wanna make a similar kind of tumblr :p

Yeah qude, I forgot!!! But this is my exclusive analysis one because I scream too much on my other one!

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God Scarlet's middle name is not 'trouble', like she says it is, it's 'trust issues'. Because boy does Scarlet have trust issues. She's so suspicious of people being friendly to her, suspicious of not being picked on, genuinely doesn't trust Ivy anymore because it's not the same Ivy that she once knew, and she's so so angry and afraid. Scarlet defaults to anger when she's confused, and she's confused (by her own emotions) a lot. She doesn't know Ivy as well anymore and she can't adjust to the one friend she had (holy lord Scarlet and Ivy have only had each other all their childhood and that's damaging) changing as drastically as Ivy was forced to change (and that's a whole other can of worms) and so she's back into an environment which is literally full of triggers, unsure of who she is and who she can trust. Ivy thinks about how off Violet is now, and she wonders if Scarlet's 'broken' as well, and Scarlet won't let her in to see. Ivy can't help Scarlet (and visa versa) because they won't let each other in to see the damage. Scarlet is free but her time in the asylum has left her scarred, and she (in some twisted survival instinct) won't let anyone see the damage. She doesn't tell Ivy about the nightmares, the insomnia, having to walk around school at night just to prove to herself that she can and she won't go missing. She doesn't tell the one person she should trust the most about what's wrong. (Which is part of why I suspect she acts out so much; it's part attention-seeking, from being neglected as a child. Part I-can-do-this-and-I-won't-die. Partly just from the trauma.). Scarlet is messed up in the head and she won't let anyone help because that's what the asylum was for and look what happened. She didn't even need to go there so what would happen if she did?

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God this was a great book, it was mostly about the journey, with nothing extraordinary coming along every few chapters, just characters trying to travel through a dangerous pass to get to safety, and I hadn't really read a book before like that, but it was brilliant

Running on the Roof of the World by Jess Butterworth

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Okay so, back on Scarlet and Ivy

I know I've mentioned this before, but Ivy was scarily dependent on Scarlet. She says that she's never had a best friend unless you count Scarlet until she met Ariadne. She says she doesn't have any friends in the beginning of the book. When she wants to be brave, she acts like Scarlet. When she wants to be tough and fearless and all the good qualities Scarlet has, she acts like Scarlet. And that means, in the situation she's in, because she's having to be brave and strong and is trying so hard to find out what happened to Scarlet, she's acting like Scarlet too much. It's out of necessity, but still. She even admits that it's coming too easy to her, pretending to be Scarlet. And only three people know, one of whom has beaten her (it's set in the early 1900s (specifically the 1930s), so Miss Fox doing that isn't too out of place), one who is just her friend (and, right now, her only friend, and can we take a moment to appreciate how dreadful that is for Ivy) and the final who can't do anything because she's also being blackmailed/guilted. So Ivy has a pitiful amount of support, and she's grieving, and she's going down a route that looks scarily like 'forget your own personality out of necessity'. Because Ivy is becoming Scarlet. In her grief and anguish and confusion, because she misses her so much and still hasn't processed her death, because she's being forced to act like her, and because acting like Scarlet is her defence mechanism because Scarlet was her defence mechanism, Ivy is beginning to lose parts of herself, how she normally behaves, to Scarlet.

And to make matters worse, Ivy is so so lonely, even with Ariadne (and thank god for Ariadne, because I'm pretty sure Ivy would have gone insane by now if not for her), and she can't stop seeing Scarlet everywhere, can't stop asking her questions in her head, can't stop searching, searching, long enough to get a decent night's sleep. She can't stop and she's driving herself into the ground with it, and with trying to play the role of Scarlet right, and that's a lot of stress on a not very mentally stable child (Ivy is thirteen. Thirteen.). Scarlet was her only support in her entire life (which was, you know, unhealthy) and she was so dependent on her that she just can't deal with what's going on now. Scarlet is a mask to put on to protect Ivy, but it's hurting her to do so, and she's becoming that mask in an effort to be okay.

Their's so much more, but I just read a scene where all this is really obvious so I had to talk about it.

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That section between kids and teens

On another note, most of the stuff I read is from the 9-12 section (fight me kids books are still good books) and I've noticed that a couple of them are... really dark if you're older than 13 and you can genuinely think about the implications. For example, the Scarlet and Ivy series (spoilers for that, if you care) is super dark from book one if you bother to think about

1) Scarlet being trapped in a mental facility for like a year sometime in the early-middle 1900s and being slowly convinced that she has actually gone insane when she hasn't, because apparently her name is Charlotte and Ivy is not real.

2) Ivy having to deal with the fact that Scarlet was dead for the better part of a year and then finding out that maybe she isn't and all that investigating and nearly dying and having to pretend to be her twin.

3) Also that one scene where Ivy gets pushed into a freezing pool and doesn't immediately swim back up to the surface. She takes the time to think about the day she found out that Scarlet died, and then decides to live. She had to think about it.

Like. How?? Did this get into a children's book??? They nearly die in every book. Ivy is depressed, Scarlet has... issues (I think it's PTSD, at the very least it's some form of trauma-related disorder) numerous other characters have issues (Rose, to name one of many) and the main plot of two of the books revolves around someone trying to murder a schoolgirl.

That went on a bit of a tangent but the point stands as to why those books were published as kids books, and not teens? Like, I enjoyed them, they're good books, but they're really dark just in general. I understand that murder mysteries have to have murder in them to work (and on that note, Scarlet and Ivy isn't even murder mystery, it's just mystery) but why the mental health themes? Why put 3) in there at all?

It's not just these books that do this either. Lockwood & co. is frequently in the kids section but that entire series revolves around death. It's not really suited to be a kids book, but it's not really a teen either.

The problem seems to be that there's this weird sort of section between kids and teens: books that aren't mature enough to be teens, but have too much mature stuff in them to be kids. They don't have a proper place.

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So I just finished Agatha Christie's 'The moving finger'...

(Spoilers, by the way)

And damn I love her books but all the racist, homophobic, sexist undertones make me mighty uncomfortable. Because I get that this was entirely normal for the time, that it'd be, in fact, weirder if it wasn't any of those things, and I'm not going to hold those books up to the standards of today because that's wrong, but it's such a weird insight into the time it was written in. It's like a crawling in my skin thing, like 'hey look this was the past and it would have sucked for you!' and it's weirdly upsetting.

Because I like Megan's character but she's described by the male love interest main character, and the way he does that is very uncomfortable for me to read. The dog analogies are particularly disconcerting for me, (and probably quite a few modern readers) and him asking her (step) father for permission to marry her even after she said no is very uncomfortable. I suppose it's just so weird to think that was normal, or normal enough.

Also, the feminine middle-aged man in the book and the way he's described also make me deeply uncomfortable, for a different reason I can't seem to name. He's portrayed as wrong and that just doesn't click with me at all.

Otherwise, it's a really good book, the mystery is great, it's fun reading from the perspective of a character who is neither Miss Marple or Hercule Poirot, the way everything pans out and fits together is very satisfying, and it's not a hard book to get into. It's a great read, and if you can just understand that all the weirdness is just because it's a product of its time, their's almost nothing I'd say against it (the mc basically always being in the right place at the right time is a bit of a fault)

But yeah, it's a bit like taking a step back in time and that can be a bit disconcerting.

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Talking about books that make me uncomfortable...

I was trying to re-read Enid Blyton stuff recently, and I just can't. Which really sucks, because they were a major part of my childhood and practically the first books I read (they were the first books my brother could actually read and he learnt how to just so he could read to us) but I can now see all the sexism and racism as I'm older and it ruins the happy nostalgia I have about the books. I can't enjoy them anymore and it actually makes me uncomfortable to think that I did, because the sexism is very overt in places. It's a product of when it was made but it's too overt for me to ignore like I can Agatha Christie. Thankfully the CDs are more toned down (thank you BBC) so I can still enjoy those, but it still kinda sucks.

They're not bad books, but they are completely a product of there time and it makes me uncomfortable. It's kind of a dumb thing to be so upset over but that was my childhood, y'anno? It's kinda like learning that the tooth fairy isn't real, and neither is Santa.